Kooperation: “Black Diaspora + Berlin. Decolonial Narratives”

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Event information

Date 20.11.2014, 13:00 – 22:30

Info Free and open to the public; With simultaneous translation English + German

Adresse Grüner Salon, Volksbühne

Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz
10178 Berlin

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In the course of the so-called “Scramble for Africa”, the Berlin Conference of 1884-1885 was held. At that moment, the colonial powers already on the African continent officially divided it among themselves. Under the Nazi Regime, German Jews, Sinti, Roma, Black Germans and People of Color were stigmatized and systematically exterminated.

The heroic refugees in the protest camp at Oranienplatz are only one recent sad example of how German internal and external policies are actively involved in funding and expanding the racist delimitation of the EU's external borders with institutions such as Frontex. "Black Diaspora + Berlin. Decolonial Narratives” is dedicated to exposing and critically discussing the continuities of this state of affairs, decentering hegemonic accounts on this matter. Until today, predominant self-representations of Germanness and especially the cosmopolitanism of Berlin are still presented as white. Black German and African Diasporas’ narratives are considered as belonging to a constructed “Other”. However, for a very long time, Black and African Diasporas have played a relevant role in this city.

This one-day symposium will introduce counter narratives of Black German legacies as well as art and activism interventions in Berlin and other European metropolis. A film screening, live performances and contributions on art education from a Black Diaspora perspective are also part of the program. The symposium aims at decolonizing established notions of knowledge, sensing and being and at enabling a dialogue on the current articulation of white supremacist discourses in Berlin and elsewhere, offering strategies and practices to dismantle it.

The series “bpb metro”, initiated and conceptualized by Julia Roth for the German Agency for Civic Education, takes the Berlin urban/metropolitan “space of struggle and negotiation” as a starting point. This sixth edition is a co-operation with Berlin-based Caribbean author, curator and activist Alanna Lockward, who has initiated and successfully presented BE.BOP. BLACK EUROPE BODY POLITICS (2012-2014) at Ballhaus Naunynstraße.

Curated by Alanna Lockward and Julia RothAfricAvenir is a Media Partner.

14.30 to 16.15: Film Screening:“Audre Lorde. The Berlin Years 1984-1992” by Dagmar Schulz (79 min.)Q&A with Ika Hügel-Marshall(Psychological advisor for intercultural issues, graphic artist, lecturer and writer co-author and cinematographer of the film “Audre Lorde. The Berlin Years“)

PATRICIA KAERSENHOUTStitches of Power. Stitches of Sorrow, 2014Photo: Nikolaj Recke, 2014The factory of von Schimmelmann produced the Dane gun. They traded these guns amongst others with the Amazones of Dahomey. The paradox is that these guns were later used by them in freedom wars against their colonial oppressors. During enslavement and the colonial period embroidery was a passtime for white women of higher social rank, while in the colonies Black women were facing daily horrors like rape, being separated from husbands and children and hard labour. White women were embroidering innocent images on white fabric.The performance stages a re-enactment where members of the audience are placed in a circle and asked to embroider the image of a Dane gun and an image of a Black female body. The needle symbolizes literally the penetration of a Black female body. Filling in the ‘empty image’ emphasizes the historical non-position and neglect of Black women in West European written history. Embroidering a gun is a paradox in itself. Embroidering as an re-enactment of innocence symbolizing an act of violence.